Love You More: A Novel (43 page)

It sounded more personal to Bobby. Mobsters wouldn’t seek to embezzle from a troopers’ union. They might, however, apply pressure
to an insider who then determined that was the best way to produce the necessary funds. An insider with access to the money, but also with the knowledge and foresight to cover his own trail …

All of a sudden, Bobby knew. It horrified him. Chilled him to the bone. And made complete sense.

He raised his elbow and drove it through the passenger-side window of the parked car. Window shattered. Car alarm sounded. Bobby ignored both sounds. He reached inside, popped the glove compartment, and helped himself to the vehicle registration info, which included record of the license plate now adorning Tessa Leoni’s truck.

Then he trotted back to D.D. and the garage, armed with new information as well as their final target.

40

P
eople were brought down here to die.

I knew that from the smell alone. The deep, rusty scent of blood, so deeply soaked into the concrete floor, no amount of bleach or lime would ever make it go away. Some people had workshops in the basements of their homes. Apparently, John Stephen Purcell had a torture chamber.

I needed overhead light. It would destroy my night vision, but also disorient any gangsters waiting to pounce.

Standing on the top step, my hand on the left-hand wall switch, I hesitated. I didn’t know if I wanted light in the basement. I didn’t know if I wanted to see.

After hours of blessed numbness, my composure was starting to crack. The smell. My daughter. The smell. Sophie.

They wouldn’t torture a little girl. What would they have to gain? What could Sophie possibly tell them?

I closed my eyes. Flipped up the switch. Then, I stood in the deep quiet that falls after midnight, and waited to hear the first whimper of
my daughter waiting to be saved, or the rush of an attacker about to ambush.

I heard nothing at all.

I unpeeled my right eye, counted to five, then opened the left. The glare from the bare bulb didn’t hurt as much as I’d feared. I kept the shotgun cradled in my arms, and dripping blood from my wounded right shoulder, I started to descend.

Purcell maintained a clutter-free basement. No stored lawn furniture or miscellaneous boxes of junk or bins of Christmas decorations for a man in his line of work.

The open space held a washer, dryer, utility sink, and massive stainless steel table. The table was rimmed with a trough, just like the ones found in morgues. The trough led to a tray at the bottom of the table, where one could attach a hose to drain the contents into the nearby utility sink.

Apparently, when breaking kneecaps and slicing off fingertips, Purcell liked to be tidy. Judging by the large pink blush staining the floor, however, it was impossible to be totally spill-proof about these things.

Next to the stainless steel table was a battered TV tray bearing various instruments, laid out like a doctor’s operating station. Each stainless steel piece was freshly cleaned, with an overhead light winking off the freshly sharpened blades.

I bet Purcell spent a lot of time staging his equipment just so. I bet he enjoyed letting his subjects take in the full array of instruments, their terrified minds already leaping ahead and doing half of his work for him. Then he would strap them to the table.

I imagined most of them started babbling before he picked up the first pair of pliers. And I bet talking didn’t save them.

I passed the table, the sink, the washer and dryer. Behind the stairs I found a door leading to the utility room. I stood to one side, reaching around with my hand to pop the door open, with my back still pressed to the wall.

No one burst out. No child cried a greeting.

Still jittery from nerves, fatigue, and a low throbbing sense of
dread, I crouched down, bringing up the shotgun to shoulder level, then darting into the gloom.

I encountered an oil tank, a water heater, the utility box, and a couple of plastic shelves weighed down with various cleaning products, zip ties, and coiled rope. And a thick coiled hose, perfect for spraying down the last of the mess.

I rose slowly to my feet, then surprised myself by swaying and nearly passing out.

The floor was wet. I looked down, vaguely surprised to see a pool of my own blood. Pouring down my arm now.

Needed help. Should go to the ER. Should …

What, call the cavalry?

The bitterness of my thoughts pulled me back together. I left the basement, returning to the gloom upstairs, except this time I snapped on every light in the house.

As I suspected, I found a small battery of first-aid supplies in Purcell’s bathroom. Guy in his line of work no doubt expected injuries he couldn’t report, and had outfitted his medicine cabinet accordingly.

I couldn’t pull my black turtleneck over my head. Instead, I used surgical shears to cut it off. Then, leaning over the sink, I poured the hydrogen peroxide straight into the bloody hole.

I gasped in shocked pain, then bit down hard on my lower lip.

If I were a true tough guy—say, Rambo—I would dig out the bullet with chopsticks, then stitch up the hole with dental floss. I didn’t know how to do any of those things, so I shoved white gauze into the wound, then taped the bloody bundle with white strips of medical adhesive.

I washed down three ibuprofen with water, then helped myself to a dark blue flannel shirt from Purcell’s closet. The shirt was two sizes too big and smelled of fabric softener and male cologne. The hem fell to midthigh and I had to roll up the cuffs awkwardly to free my hands.

I’d never worn the shirt of a man I was going to kill. It struck me as oddly intimate, like sprawling in bed in your lover’s button-up Oxford after the first time you’d had sex.

I have gone too far
, I thought,
lost some piece of myself
. I was looking for my daughter, but discovering an abyss I’d never known existed inside
of me. Would finding Sophie ease the pain? Would the light of her love chase the darkness back again?

Did it even matter? From the moment she was born, I would’ve given my life for my child. What’s a little sanity instead?

I picked up the shotgun, and retreated outside, where Purcell remained slumped against the house, eyes closed. I thought he’d passed out, but when my feet crunched through the snow, his eyes opened.

His face was pale. Sweat dotted his upper lip, despite the freezing temperature. He’d lost a lot of blood. He was probably dying and seemed to know it, though it didn’t appear to surprise him.

Purcell was old school. Live by the sword, die by the sword.

That would make my next job tougher.

I squatted down beside him.

“I could take you down to the basement,” I said.

He shrugged.

“Let you sample a taste of your own medicine.”

He shrugged again.

“You’re right: I’ll bring the equipment up here. Save me the trouble of lugging your sorry ass around.”

Another shrug. I wished suddenly that Purcell had a wife and kid. What would I do if he did? I didn’t know, but I wanted to hurt him as much as he’d hurt me.

I placed the shotgun behind me, out of Purcell’s reach. Then I slid out the KA-BAR knife, hefting it lightly in the palm of my left hand.

Purcell’s gaze flickered to the blade. Still, he said nothing.

“You’re going to die by a woman’s hand,” I told him, and finally had the satisfaction of seeing his nostrils flare. Ego. Of course. Nothing hurt a man quite as much as being one-upped by a woman.

“Do you remember what you told me that morning in the kitchen?” I whispered. “You told me as long as I cooperated no one would get hurt. You told me as long as I handed over my service weapon, you’d let my family go. Then you turned and murdered my husband.”

I ran the knife down the front of his shirt. The blade popped off the first button, the second, the third. Purcell wore a dark T-shirt underneath, topped by the requisite gold chain.

I planted the tip of the knife at the top of the thin cotton fabric and began to tear.

Purcell stared at the blade in rapt fascination. I could see his imagination kicking into gear, starting to realize everything such a large, well-honed blade could do to him. While he sat with his hands tied on his very own property. Helpless. Vulnerable.

“I’m not going to kill you,” I said, slicing down the black T-shirt.

Purcell’s eyes widened. He stared at me uncertainly.

“That’s what you want, isn’t it? Dying in the line of duty. A suitable end to an honorable gangster.”

Last shirt button. Pop. Last inch of T-shirt. Shred.

I used the blade to peel back his shirts. His stomach was unexpectedly pale, a little thicker around the waist, but defined. He trained. Not a big guy. Maybe a boxer. He understood fitness mattered in his line of work. Got to have some muscle to lug unconscious bodies down to the basement and strap them to the table.

Gotta have some size to snatch a struggling six-year-old girl.

The knife eased back his shirts, exposing his left side. I stared at his bare shoulder in fascination. The goose pimples that rippled across his flesh in the cold. The way his nipple formed a round bud right over his heart.

“You shot my husband here,” I murmured, and I used the blade to mark the spot. Blood welled up, forming a perfect red X against Purcell’s skin. The razor-sharp blade made for a nice, clean cut. Shane had always taken his equipment seriously.

“Next shot was right here.” I moved the blade again. Maybe I cut deeper this time, because Purcell hissed low, quivering beneath me.

“Third shot, right here.” This time, I definitely went deep. When I raised the KA-BAR knife, the blood welled at the edge of the blade and dripped down onto Purcell’s stomach.

Blood in the clean white snow.

Brian dying in the clean bright kitchen.

The mobster was shaking now. I gazed into his face. I let him see the death in my eyes. I let him see the killer he helped make.

“Here’s the deal,” I informed him. “Tell me where my daughter is,
and in return, I’ll remove your restraints. I’m not giving you a knife or anything that crazy, but you can take a shot at me. Maybe you can overpower me, in which case, my bad. Maybe you can’t. In which case, at least you go down swinging instead of dying trussed up like a pig in your own front yard. You have until the count of five to decide.
One.
”

“I don’t snitch,” Purcell snarled.

I shrugged, reached up, and mostly because I felt like it, lopped off a giant piece of his thick brown hair.
“Two.”

He flinched, didn’t back down. “Gonna fucking kill me anyway.”

Another section of hair, maybe even a bit of ear.
“Three.”

“Fucking cunt.”

“Stick and stones may break my bones …” I wadded up a big fistful of dark hair at the top of his forehead. Getting into the spirit of things now, I pulled up hard, so I could see his scalp lift.
“Four.”

“I don’t have your daughter!” Purcell exploded. “Don’t do kids. Told them in the beginning, don’t do kids.”

“Then where is she?”

“You’re the fucking cop. Don’t you think you should know?”

I whacked with the blade. I got a lot of hair and definitely some scalp. Blood bubbled up red. Dripped onto the icy ground, turned pink against the snow.

I wondered if I would ever make it through another winter, where fresh snowfall wouldn’t make me want to vomit.

Purcell howled, shuddering against his restraints. “You trusted all the wrong people. Now you hurt me? I did you a favor! Your husband was no good. Your police officer friend even worse. How’d I even get into your house, you stupid cunt? Think your old man would just let me in?”

I stopped. I stared at him. And I realized, in that instant, the one piece of the puzzle I’d been missing. I’d been so overwhelmed by the trauma of Saturday morning, I’d never contemplated the logistics. I’d never analyzed the scene as a cop.

For example, Brian already knew he was in trouble. His weight lifting, the recent purchase of the Glock .40. His own jumpy mood
and short temper. He knew he’d waded in too deep. And yeah, he’d never open the door to a man like John Stephen Purcell, especially with Sophie in the house.

Except Sophie hadn’t been in the house when I’d returned home
.

She was already gone. Purcell had been standing in the kitchen alone, holding Brian at gunpoint. Sophie had already been taken, by a second person who must’ve come with Purcell. Someone Brian would feel safe greeting at the door. Someone who had access to the troopers’ pension. Who knew Shane. Who felt powerful enough to control all the parties involved.

My face must have paled, because Purcell started to laugh. The sound rattled in his chest.

“See? I tell the truth,” he growled. “I’m not the problem. The men in your life are.”

Purcell laughed again, the blood dripping down his face and making him look as crazy as I felt. We were two peas in a pod, I realized abruptly. Soldiers in the war, to be used, abused, and betrayed by the generals involved.

Others made the decisions. We just paid the price.